


It Was Always You

by astromirage



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gay, M/M, Not Beta Read, Sad Tsukishima Kei, Sad Yamaguchi Tadashi, Sick Character, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, absent father sorry Kei ur on ur own, i might write a sequel lol, pls I never beta read things, theyre all gay, yachi is a lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astromirage/pseuds/astromirage
Summary: In order to keep their crushes off the scents of their feelings, Yachi Hitoka and Yamaguchi Tadashi begin dating.
Relationships: Tsukishima Akiteru/Udai Tenma, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Yachi Hitoka/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	It Was Always You

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on @/sidkozume's tiktok based on one scene from this fic!!

Tadashi sucks on the straw of his bubble tea awkwardly as he looks down at the table. 

“Well?”

He runs it over in his mind, he doesn’t think the team is homophobic, he sighs. Yachi looks so sacred, more so than usual, and he sets down his cup. He never wants Tsukki to know that he loved him.

“Yes, I’ll do it.”

Hitoka stands up from her seat excitedly and hugs him, “Oh thank you, Yamaguchi!”

He chuckles uneasily and hugs her back. “It’s no problem.”

She smiles and backs away from the blushing Yamaguchi, she sits down across from him once again and whips out a notebook. 

“We need rules! So we don’t mess anything up!”

Tadashi quirks an eyebrow at this nod, “Well, no kisses on the lips.”

Hitoka nods and scribbles that down, “You should walk me to my bus stop every day after practice.”

“Tsukki’s going to be there, you know that right?”

She stops in the middle of her sentence and groans. “Oh no, do you think it’ll be hard to keep it up around him?”

Tadashi fiddles with his hands and chews on the inside of his mouth, he HAD to do this. “No, it should be fine.”

Yachi finishes writing the sentence down and sets her head in her hand. “Should we eat lunch together?”

He nods in response, mentally preparing himself for Kei’s shitty attitude at the manager interrupting their lunchtime. “Is there anything else Yachi?”

She taps the pencil against the pages and hums a tune, “For, now, this is all I can handle.”

“Day one,” Tadashi says, his body shakes with nerves and he gulps, “of being fake together,”

“Yea,” Hitoka replies, she knew this was dumb, she knew that, but Shimizu could NEVER find out about the massive crush she has on her. 

“So. I have to get home, I have homework to finish up.” He says, getting up and taking his bubble tea with him. 

“Oh, yea!! Me too, I totally forgot!” she laughs and packs away her notebook. 

The two separate at the door and go home, Tadashi sits at his desk, unable to form a single thought that isn’t about this ill-conceived idea, Yachi lays on her bed, mind overtaken by how absolutely out of her mind this idea is. She sighs and rolls over. 

-

Yachi sighs and walks into the gym for the morning meeting, setting her eyes on Tadashi and running up to him. 

“Tadashi!” she shouts, waving at him, Kei quirks an eyebrow at this, turning towards the blonde girl. 

“Oh, Hitoka.” he smiles, offering his hand to her, despite how shaky and sweaty it is. 

He can’t breathe well for some reason and he just pulls Yachi into his side. Kei stares at this occurrence and walks away from the couple. 

“What the fuck?” he mutters and sighs. 

“What's wrong Tsukishima?" Hinata asks as he walks by him, holding a box of game tapes. 

"Nothing," he responds, gulping down water. 

A few seconds pass and Hinata says a quick and astonished "Woah."

"Woah what shrimp?" Kei asks, flicking his eyes down to the boy. 

"Yachi and Yamaguchi, I never thought they'd get together! I was convinced Yachi liked Kiyoko."

"Yea, well, I guess we were wrong." Kei lets slip before he catches himself. 

Hinata opens his mouth to question him but Tsukishima is already walking away. 

-

Kei sits down for lunch and almost smiles seeing Tadashi run to the table, but doesn’t, as his girlfriend is close in tow, hand in hand. Kei sighs deeply and opens his lunch, tuning out the lovey-dovey couple until the bell signifying their next period starts.

-

After school practice is no better, Yachi kissing Tadashi’s cheek shyly before she goes off to work with Shimizu, face still bright red with blush as she takes notes with the other manager. He looks over to Tadashi who meets eyes with him and smiles awkwardly, face crimson with embarrassment. He walks over to the boy, arms crossed and eyes, shifted downwards. 

“So, you didn’t tell me you and Yachi got together.”

“It was so sudden, but yea,” he smiles, face pink and hot, there’s a pause “She’s going to walk home with us, is that all right?”

Kei almost snaps, yells at his childhood friend, the boy he loved, that is wasn’t okay, that this girl that he all of a sudden got together with, is tearing his only support system away from him, that this other girl whos everything he’s not, is replacing him and he can’t do anything to stop it. 

“I have to go grocery shopping for my mom, she’s sick, so I won’t be coming with you.” A lie, his mother recovered a few days ago and seemed to be in her few weeks of feeling okay before getting sick once again, and Akiteru had gone shopping yesterday.

“Oh, well, tomorrow?”

“I have to go somewhere with Akiteru.” another lie, Akiteru had left after taking care of their often sickly mother for a few days, saying he got an apartment with his boyfriend, Udai, and had to move in. 

“Okay then Tsukki, just let me know when you can walk home, okay?” he asks kindly. 

“Yea.” Kei nods, going back to practice. 

\- 

Kei stops talking to Tadashi. 

Not over eagerly although, it happened over a course of a few days, Kei couldn’t handle watching the only boy he’d ever spilled his guts to, let in and loved, love someone else and slowly slip away from him. So he cut him off himself. He didn’t want to watch the slow descent into darkness as the person who’d been there for everything left him for someone else, so he ended it, unofficially, himself.

It hurt to do that, he felt empty. But it hurt worse to see Tadashi with someone else.

Whenever he saw Yamaguchi with her, he’d take a turn down the hall, sit by the pool to eat lunch, or practice on the other side of the gym. 

-

Tadashi frowns as he watches Kei avoid him and Yachi as he walks out of the locker room. He hadn’t talked or even looked his way for days. It felt like shit and Tadashi was so close to breaking apart. He just wanted his best friend back, he doesn’t care if it’s just as friends, but he needs him.

“Are you okay?” Yachi asks, frowning as the two let each other’s hands go. 

“No! Tsukki hasn’t talked to me, no less looked at me for days! I messed it all up.”

Yachi nods, “If it means anything, Kiyoko has been different lately.” The two look down at the ground. 

“We need to stop this,” Tadashi says softly, looking at his friend and smiling awkwardly.

“Yea, I’m sorry about all of this.”

“Don’t worry about it, I just have to get Tsukki back, go get Kiyoko back.”

Yachi smiles and nods, walking away from her ex pretend boyfriend. 

Yamaguchi sighs and wrings his hands together and goes home, tomorrow is the start of operation: get his best friend back. But the operation never starts. 

-

Kei opens his door and kicks off his shoes. “Mom, I’m home!”

When he’s met with a deathly silence instead of a call of hello, he panics, running into the living room to see his mother on the floor, barely breathing. He scrambles for his phone in the bag he dropped, calling the emergency services immediately. 

As he waits for the EMTs, he calls his brother. 

“Akiteru, you need to come to the house now.” he’s aware that his voice is shaking and he’s on the verge of tears.

Ever since his father left them, she was always there, no matter if she was sick or had work, she was there until she got sicker, then Kei was by himself, his mother only having a few good days, few and far between. Akiteru left for college, only coming down a day a week to help out. His mom started working from home, earning enough money to keep them afloat, he cooked for them, meals from ingredients from the clearance and sales bins. Tadashi was his only constant, never severely ill, or at college with his boyfriend, or leaving him for a younger, more healthy woman. Then Yamaguchi got a girlfriend, and Kei removed him from his life, leaving him truly alone. 

“Kei!? What’s wrong?”

“Mom, she. She’s really sick. When I came home, she was passed out on the floor.” 

“Oh my god, Kei did you call for help!?” he shouts, panic flooding through him as he rushes to collect his stuff.

“Yes, of course. Just please come home.” 

Akiteru’s breathing hitches at Kei’s use of the word home, and the quietness of his voice. 

“Tenma is going to have to come down with me though, is that fine?”

“Just come home, please.” his voice is near silent as tears well in his eyes.

He hangs up as the EMTs knock on the door, he lets them in as he wipes away his tears and leads them to his mother’s limp body. 

-

Kei sits, knees to his chest, nose filled with overly sterile hospital smell and eyes burning from crying. He feels his eyes fall closed before Akiteru walks into the room, Udai Tenma in hand, eyes red. 

“Kei!” he whispers, dropping his boyfriend’s hand in turn for a hug from his brother.

They hug for a few more seconds before Akiteru sits in the chair next to him, Udai awkwardly taking place on his lap. 

“They say what’s wrong with her?” Akiteru asks, cuddling his boyfriend close as he watches his mother’s breathing, helped by an oxygen mask. 

“They said that it was an infection that made its way to her organs, they gave her some antibiotics, they said she should be fine.”

His brother lets out a sigh of relief and holds Tenma into his chest. “Thank god.”

“Kei,” Udai says quietly, “It’s going to be okay.”  
He nods, trying to flash a smile at the man.

Kei gets up, almost calls Yamaguchi, but hesitates and walks outside to a garden. It’s quiet and still, it relieves the chaos in his brain. He knows if he still had Tadashi, he would hug him until Kei felt better and could smile again, but he doesn’t, so he’s stuck in this fucked up limbo where he can’t escape this suffocating feeling.

-

Kei doesn’t go to school for a few days, committing himself to stay at the hospital with his mother while Akiteru and Tenma do their jobs. She improves on the third day being in the hospital, and Akiteru takes them all home, Kei attached to her side, helping her walk to the couch or to her work area. 

He sits down next to his sleeping mom and puts his head in his hands, it’s all too much. He falls asleep on the couch with the warmth of his mom next to him. 

-

Kei wakes up the next day, his mom sitting up and working on a computer. 

“Are you going to school today Kei?”

He nods and heads upstairs to get ready. “Love you, mom,” Kei says, looking at her frail form.

She smiles, pride in her son swelling in her body, “I love you too Kei.” 

Kei quickly puts on his uniform and grabs his practice bag, he says goodbye to his mother, confirming he’d be home for dinner and leaves for school. He ignores Tadashi, tries to focus in class, and just make it to volleyball practice, where he could forget about his worries, even if for a few hours. 

-

He looks at the team from the locker room door as they stare at him. 

“Tsukishima, where have you been?” Daichi asks, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. 

“The hospital,” he says simply, sliding his hands into his pocket. 

“What!? Tsukki what happened!?” Tadashi nearly screams. 

“It was just my mom, you know how sick she can get,” he says nonchalantly, walking to his locker and shoving his bags in.  
“Are you okay Tsukki?” he asks gently, looking at his friend. 

“Yup,” he responds simply. 

“Can you please just talk to me? Please Tsukki?”

Kei side-eyes the boy who’s looking at him pleadingly. 

“Why don’t you talk to Yachi, since you two are so in love?” 

“We’re not in love Tsukki!”

The locker room goes silent and Kei arches an eyebrow. 

“Huh?”

“I never loved Yachi, I love you, but I-you-”

“What? But Yachi?” Kei asks stiffly and frigidly.

“It was all fake! The relationship was fake.”

Kei closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. 

“So you lied to me? For what!?” Kei questions “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you fake date someone, just so you wouldn’t have to be with me?”

“It’s not like that Tsukki!” he shoots back, hands fisted tightly. 

“Then what is it like Tadashi?” Kei’s voice softens and he swallows spit, looking away from the freckled boy. 

“I was scared, do you know much I love and value you? Do you?” Tadashi’s voice is quiet, suddenly self-conscious about the team around them. 

As the room goes silent, the shuffling of feet is heard as the rest of the astonished team leaves the two to deal with themselves. 

“Kei I love you! I’m sorry for lying to you, but I was scared that you’d hate me, so I thought helping Yachi would make me stop thinking about it and I didn’t want you to know how I felt.” he feels the weight lift off his chest and his eyes finally meet Kei’s.

“Why would I be angry? I’ve known you nearly all my life, you were my only friend for the longest time.” he pauses, pushing his glasses up and sighing very deeply, “Do **you** know how much I love you? I have loved you for the longest time. You didn’t have to fake date your friend to forget about your feelings, because you never had to.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” he tries not to hug the boy before he finally realizes “You what?”

“Uh, love you?” Kei repeats, questioning how Tadashi skipped over that. 

“You do?!”

Kei nods and tries not to laugh at the boy’s almost screaming. 

“Can I give you a hug?”

In place of an answer, Kei squeezes the boy close, “We’re good now, right?”

“Right Tsukki!”

“Good, because I’ve wanted to do this for the longest time,” Kei says, taking Tadashi into a soft kiss. 

-

Kei suddenly has Tadashi back again, and his mother's sickness doesn’t seem as terrifying as it did the day she collapsed. Yes, Akiteru will be at college with his boyfriend, Yes, his mom will get sick and dinners will continue to be made by Kei, and Yes his Father will never come back, but with his boyfriend by his side, it’ll be fine.


End file.
